Search Results

Read Beyoncé’s essay on gender inequality

Share this:

Themes of womanhood and femininity were all over Beyoncé’s latest self-titled album, and pop music’s biggest star isn’t stopping there. As Dummy points out, Beyoncé has contributed The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink, a comprehensive 400-page investigation into “the millions of women who are doing it all and barely scraping by, struggling to provide and parent in a nation that hasn’t kept pace with the modern realities of their lives.”

Beyoncé was one of many prominent women to contribute essays to the report, joining the likes of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Eva Longoria, Jada Pinkett Smith, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and and Sheryl Sandberg. Beyoncé’s essay is entitled Gender Equality Is a Myth and can be read in full below:

“We need to stop buying into the myth about gender equality. It isn’t a reality yet. Today, women make up half of the U.S. workforce, but the average working woman earns only 77 percent of what the average working man makes. But unless women and men both say this is unacceptable, things will not change. Men have to demand that their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters earn more—commensurate with their qualifications and not their gender. Equality will be achieved when men and women are granted equal pay and equal respect.

“Humanity requires both men and women, and we are equally important and need one another. So why are we viewed as less than equal? These old attitudes are drilled into us from the very beginning. We have to teach our boys the rules of equality and respect, so that as they grow up, gender equality becomes a natural way of life. And we have to teach our girls that they can reach as high as humanly possible.

“We have a lot of work to do, but we can get there if we work together. Women are more than 50 percent of the population and more than 50 percent of voters. We must demand that we all receive 100 percent of the opportunities.”

The Shriver Report is available for free download via Amazon from now through January 15th.